I don't know if it's for the same reason I miss Bush (I doubt it, you probably liked to blog about him), but I miss Bush too. I miss the feeling of being safe during his watch.

I don't care about anything else that he did, most of which was big-government conservatism which I loathe, but that, the security thing, he did really well.

Do you recall the Weekly Standard's Noemie Emery's essay about Colonel Obama?

"Now let us imagine a different candidate, one who looks like Barack Obama, with the same mixed-race, international background, even the same middle name. But this time, he is Colonel Obama, a veteran of the war in Iraq, a kick-ass Marine with a "take no prisoners" attitude, who vows to follow Osama bin Laden to the outskirts of Hell. He comes from the culture of the military (the most color blind and merit-based in the country), and not the rarefied air of Hyde Park. He goes to a church with a mixed-race congregation and a rational preacher. He has never met Bill Ayers, and if he did he would flatten him. He thinks arugula is a town near Bogota and has Toby Keith on his favorites list. Would he strike no chords at all in Jacksonian country? Does anyone think he would lose 90 to 9 in Buchanan County? Or lose West Virginia by 41 points? For those Jacksonians who would be fine with a black man in the White House (not as tiny a group as Newsweek thinks), Colonel Obama is the one we are waiting for. When we will get him is anyone's guess."

I WANT COLONEL OBAMA. GIVE ME COLONEL OBAMA. Him I would suppport with every breath in my body.

If Obama won't revoke the visa of a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid; a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria; a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags; whose visa renewal had been denied by the British; who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen; whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who's visa would Obama revoke?

It was a feeling. The same system existed, and there's no reason to believe there weren't opportunities for catastrophic failures. It may feel better to hear someone speak in a more resolute tone several days after someone is caught with an explosive on a plane, but the upshot's no different. The facts are that our security is haphazard, and communications among agencies is fractured, and these things need to be fixed. The problems didn't start on Jan. 20, 2009.

What caused your panties to be in such a twist here? Ann didn't compare Bush to Obama, and one has to be in an already somewhat sour disposition to infer that was her reason for posting. As to Maureen Dowd - her contributions to humanity are the equivalent of a 2-week old dog turd surrounded by flies - her column hardly can be read as Obama being compared negatively to Bush.

So what's up? Just because a few commenter use the occasion to bash Obama doesn't mean you have to participate? You are usually far better than this.

Ann,

Awesome job spanking the worthless Maureen Dowd. I suspect the America-hating Sulzberger keeps her because she obviously hates so much of America's fly-over country.

travelers could see we had made no progress toward a technologically wondrous Philip K. Dick universe

"wondrous" is not a word I would use in relation to Philip K. Dick's oeuvre. "Dystopic" perhaps. The Obama administration seems to making some "progress" toward dystopia, but I don't think that's Modo's point.

ChaseI recommended a Keurig coffee maker, like this one. I haven't been to Starbucks since. Although I do miss seeing all the hot chicks in the morning at my local. Actually I miss that a lot now I think about it. Anyways, it costs 50 cents to brew a cup. Good for tea and hot cocaoa as well.

Dowd got O's favorite word wrong too. She thought it was "unprecedented." Miller thinks it was "Bush did it," three words but much closer that MoDo's offering. Anyone paying attention to O (and he gets annoyed if others don't) knows that it's "I" in all its case-forms (me, myself ....).

Medved also pointed out that the U.S. claims we need to get the "moderate Muslims" to turn in their fanatical brethren; we had such a moderate Muslim turn his own son in - repeatedly - but the Ωbama administration FAILED TO ACT to protect American citizens.

Obama's favorite word for the bitter clingers here in the bastion of Capitalism is Destitute. He is sworn to get us there ASAP and would have finished us off in Copenhagen if the Chinese had gone along with his agenda there. The Chinese want to see us back at work buying their stuff again and keeping the Dollars value from disappearing. Obama was certainly frustrated by that. Now we may linger and not become Destitute for a few more years.

Obama is screwed. If he does what is necessary (bringing the fight to the terrorists, implementing effective security measures, denying terrorists sanctuary in our Courts, etc.) he will be admitting that Bush was right and he was wrong. If he does nothing and just hopes that his teleprompter sessions will somehow mollify our enemies, then he will be held responsible when they next slaughter us. He can't win politically, so he might as well do the right thing and save some American lives. Unfortunately for our country his vanity is an obstacle that may prove insurmountable.

If the constitution had truly been kept it wouldn't be all that vital whether presidents were weak or strong and we would neither particularly need them or particularly miss them. But if we must miss a president let it be Silent Cal who at least tried to keep the constitution, what was left of it when he arrived.

I would have a lot more respect for President Obama if, in the face of things not working, he changed tack.

Perhaps, just perhaps, President Bush was right on some things. President Obama should display some pragmatism and the courage to buck his own supporters. If he did that he would find many conservatives would support him.

Bushman, I suppose he could have a total conversion and end up with the votes of some conservatives to offset the Libs he loses, but I put the odds of that at about a million to one. This isn't only about a policy or two. It's about who Obama is. He has spent a lifetime believing that empathy for our enemies is the answer. That the US military is a source of misery around the world is a key tenet of his philosophy. I see no realistic way for him to overcome these massive handicaps to his thinking. If the thousands of Americans who were killed by Muslim terrorists on 9/11 didn't wake him up, what will?

Lincoltf, I agree with you about Obama's state of mind. However, I still believe that most Americans want to know that the president will do what is necessary to protect the country. And besides, how many votes would he lose from the left? They really have nowhere else to go.

All you need to do is look at the falling poll numbers to see where his current direction taking him.

It's true that the Libs won't have anywhere else to go in 2012, but the same logic dictates that conservatives will vote for just about any Republican over Barry. I can't imagine a less defense-oriented candidate than Obama ever getting close to the GOP nomination.Anyway, my hope is that a true professional comes in to replace Napolitano. Someone with a military background or similar experience (FBI, CIA, NSA) could do all the "dirty" work and Obama could keep some distance. The staus quo (putting ill- qualified figureheads in key security posts) has got to stop.

Sometimes when I'm feeling really down on myself for my lack of material and professional success, I read something by Maureen Dowd, and then I feel worse.

She cites, as really cool uber technological progressive advancement and hope for the future, Philip K. Dick, and Total-freaking-Recall?

WTF?

Is that what the cool kids are going to be doing now? Gonna be edgy by name-dropping sci-fi icons? Dick wrote about a soulless and frightening future (or at least, that's what movies were made) and in Total Recall the method of control used against "terrorists" was to cut off their air. What were his other famous (movie) stories? Android sex slaves and laborers trying to get their internal time-bombs turned off and, what might actually be *relevant* to public safety, a method of divining future criminal acts and stopping them before they start.

At what point did it the obvious message that these things were *bad* become obscured?

"Even before (...) travelers could see we had made no progress toward a technologically wondrous Philip K. Dick universe."

Wondrous.

"...just at the moment we sought reassurance that our security has finally caught up to “Total Recall.”"

Reassuring us.

Egad.

You know what we do with technology? We *listen* to people. We invade their privacy. We use imagers to look under their clothes.

And Dowd just wrote a column saying how *bad* it is that Republicans (in a bi-partisan effort, but it was still *them*) said that we didn't WANT freaking PHILIP K. DICK.

Maybe instead of dropping cool-sounding names to be like the cool-kids... Maureen should read.

Why does she keep inserting random thoughts like "Janet Napolitano (who learned nothing from an earlier Janet named Reno)..."

What is the significance of the fact that Janet Napolitano has the same first name as Janet Reno? Is that supposed to be one of those clever plays on words that Dowd never tires of? That let her readers know what a fun gal she must be to hang out with, dropping bon mots right and left? Like writing "...it looked as though the Obama operation was flying by the seat of its pants." Get it? "seat of its pants" works on so many levels!

Also, this connection: "President Obama’s favorite word is “unprecedented,” as Carol Lee of Politico pointed out. Yet he often seems mired in the past as well..."

Why should Obama's frequent use of the word "unprecedented" make it ironic that he is mired in the past? Obama just uses that word to make it sound like no one has ever tackled problems as big as the ones he faces, so don't blame him if he screws up.

Why does she keep inserting random thoughts like "Janet Napolitano (who learned nothing from an earlier Janet named Reno)..."

Paul, you proceed from a false assumption. Dowd isn't in the NYT because she's some kind of great thinker. She's there because there are people who like the way she writes. To her fans the subject matter is of far less importance than the style.

Althouse might do that on purpose, but she'd deliver internal consistency to the reference and we would know it was a "Dick" reference. No way Dowd did that on purpose, and it's not even a point that supports her supposed point, which she then mucks up with a diversion to Total Recall instead of Minority Report. Minority Report *destroys* the point of her reference, so maybe that's why she didn't use it, but Total Recall in no way supports what she seemed to be trying to be all cool and progressive over saying in a "hip" sort of way.

Maybe the mastermind who will save the day is a parasitic twin stuck on her "hip?"

Maybe her readers like her style, but they sure can't be reading for meaning or content.

Eric, I guess I just don't understand why anyone likes the way she writes. To me it's distracting and tiresome to be reading a piece that contains lots of forced, pointless word associations. But obviously you're right, someone must like it.

Speaking of whether or not anyone actually likes it, when I scroll through the columnists on the Drudge page I note with amazement that certain people still have syndicated columns despite the fact that no one has cared what they had to say for 20 years now. It's like my surprise when I'm reminded that Hugh Downs is still alive.

Has a picture of what seems to be the body scanner image of the "reassuring" and "wondrous" Philip K. Dick future that the backward thinking Republicans deprived Maureen Dowd.

How anyone could fuss about *that* I sure don't know! I expect Maureen to publish her body scan as part of a future column so we can enjoy all her folds and crevasses.

Now, monitoring large overseas money transfers is an *obvious* assault on human rights, and let us not *even* get into listening to phone calls from suspect foreigners to US destinations or that bounce through a US communications relay. OMG!

"I WANT COLONEL OBAMA. GIVE ME COLONEL OBAMA. Him I would suppport with every breath in my body.

Cheers,Victoria"

Eh, Victoria, look over to Florida. There's a man (not mixed race) rising there going by the name of Colonel Allen West. There's a viral vid of him. Had he run for President last year, I'd have been standing behind him. Obambi? Not even owning all of Fort Knox could make me piss on him if he were on fire.

But I want a President who admires this country, warts and all, who understands and appreciates its history, its traditions, its culture and its struggles to acomplish what it has, and one who admires and respects its people collectively without regard to their individual or group politics, culture or heritage.